Of a sudden Tark whirled and his thought came swiftly to Nelson and the girl. "They come now from outside, into the Cavern!"
Nelson swung around, gripping his gun. He could not see the entrance of the Cavern-the shaking curtain of radiance from the cleft of cold fire barred his gaze.
Yet he trusted the wolf's instincts. He asked quickly, "How many, Tark?"
"But four," the wolf's thought answered. "The two outlanders, and Shan Kar and Hoik of the Humanites."
"The other Humanites would fear to enter!" Nsharra exclaimed, her eyes blazing.
"It gives us a better chance," Nelson rasped. "Nsharra, stay back here in the shadows. I'm going to try to get them as they come through that tube."
He sprang forward and found Tark running beside him. "It was for this fight that I came with you, outlander! I owe a blood-debt!"
They hastened into the shadowy interior of the huge wrecked turbine, to the end of the giant tube. Nelson crouched there, gun in hand, his other hand restraining the tense hairy body of Tark.
He had only half a clip left in his gun, and he knew he must wait until Sloan and the others came past the twist in the tube. He had to make sure.
He heard the slipping, scrambling sounds of their progress through the tube, and he felt Tark tauten beside him.
"Not yet!" Nelson told himself, sweating. "Not yet—"
The scuffling of feet was louder, much louder. They had surely come around the twist in the tube by now.
But he had to be sure! He waited seconds longer, waited when he felt sure they were but yards away from him in the dark tube.
Then Nelson emptied his pistol straight down the tube.
"Piet, hold on!" yelled a muffled voice in the tube as the thunderous echoes died.
Nelson had heard his bullets whining off metal. He knew then that he had failed, that the amplification of sound in the tube had tricked him into firing too soon.
A whisper came down the tube to him. "Give him—"
Then, a metallic something came bumping and rattling along the tube toward him.
"Grenade!" yelled Nelson. "Back, Tark!"
He and the wolf recoiled and leaped to escape from the turbine interior as the bumping, rattling thing came out of the tube. As they burst out of the turbine, a terrific explosion blammed behind them. Murderous bits of steel thudded into the turbine walls, and a few that found openings whizzed over their heads.
Then Nelson heard the sharp rattle of submachine-gun fire, heard bullets ricocheting inside the huge turbine.
"I will not flee without killing!" flared Tark's thought. The wolf had turned, his hair bristling, great fangs gleaming.
"You wouldn't have a chance, Tark! They're clearing the way ahead with guns now! We may be able to evade them back in the shadows."
Nelson knew with a cold and terrible certainty how small that chance was. Sloan and the Dutchman would methodically hunt them down, and he had not a shot left in his gun.
He and Tark ran between the platinum pillars of the thought-record, too swiftly to hear that mechanical epic message begin again. They reached Nsharra, back in the shadows.
"I failed," Nelson told her bitterly. "They will come on now. You should not have come here, Nsharra!"
She looked at him steadily, her face a white blur in the shadows. "I think L'Lan dies tonight and, if it does, I have no wish to live."
He took her into his arms. And it was then, as he held her, that Nick Sloan's calm voice came out to them.
Sloan and the other three had issued from the tube into the turbine, but they had not come out of the turbine into the light of the cold fire. Nelson knew why. They were afraid he had more bullets.
"Nelson!" called the cool, hard voice. "Nelson, are you ready to quit making a fool of yourself and talk business?"
"Say what you have to say, Sloan," he called back.
The other's voice was almost a drawl. "Nelson, even though you got your body back, you joined the losing side and I guess now you know it. You're trapped, but I've no wish to rub you out. Give yourself up and I'll let you go free out of L'Lan."
Nelson thought swiftly. "You'd let the girl, and Tark, go with me?"
"Sure," came the quick answer. "Just toss your gun out and come out with hands raised."
Eric Nelson's mind was racing. He saw a vague possibility, a slender chance—
He put no faith whatever in Sloan's specious promise. He knew as completely as he could know anything that, when he walked out unarmed into the light, Sloan would give him a burst. But he had still one card in his hand that the others knew nothing of — a card that was a poor one, perhaps, but worth playing.
"I don't trust you, Sloan," he answered harshly. "But I'll give my gun to Shan Kar if he will guarantee our safety."
Instantly came Shan Kar's voice. "I will promise that, Nelson."
"Sure, and we'll stick by it," Sloan chimed in. "Won't we, Piet?"
"Then let Shan Kar come here and I'll surrender to him — but only to him," Nelson said.
There was a pause, a silence from the huge wrecked turbine. Then came the Humanite leader's voice.
"I am coming, Eric Nelson. Remember that if you kill me it will only seal your own doom."
Shan Kar came out into the light. He had sword in hand and his head was high, his stride confident as he came back toward the shadows. He glimpsed Nelson, standing with Nsharra and Tark in the shadows beyond the platinum pillars. He came toward them, his hand extended for the pistol that Nelson was holding out butt-foremost.
And then, as he stepped between the two quartz spheres on the pillars, Shan Kar stopped. A bewildered look came upon his face.
"What — what—?" he faltered, amazed.
Nelson knew. He knew that in Shan Kar's mind was now sounding that thought-record, that solemn message of the ancients.
"Take warning!"
Shan Kar stood rooted, listening — listening to that tremendous voice of the dim past repeating its saga of the coming of intelligence to Earth. And the Humanite's face grew strange.
Nelson knew when the record had ended. For Shan Kar moved forward again, hand still reaching out to take the empty gun. But he moved now like a man in a dream. And his eyes stared at them unseeingly.
"The word of the ancients!" he whispered. "But then it is true that the Brotherhood of the Clans is as old as man! Then the myths that we Humanites thought were lies are true."
"They are true, Shan Kar," said Nsharra. "You would not believe my father because you did not want to believe him. And he could not bring you in here to hear because the ancients themselves prohibited that unscrupulous or ignorant men should enter here. But they are true!"
Shan Kar's olive, handsome face was pallid. "Then what we Humanites have believed, the natural dominance of man over the Clans—that is the lie!"
Nelson almost pitied the Humanite in this moment. Shan Kar had built a fanatic belief upon a basis that now was swept away.
He saw in the man's face the awful realization that he had brought fire and blood and death to L'Lan for a fanatic faith in human right to rule that had no warrant in reality.
"You can pass that gun over to me," said Nick Sloan.
He and Van Voss, with Hoik behind them, had come out of the turbine, their submachine-guns held breast-high. They stood not a dozen feet behind Shan Kar.
Shan Kar, wild-eyed, swung around to them. His voice was a hoarse cry. "We have done wrong! The legend of the Brotherhood is true! This killing must stop."
"The thing I dislike about working with fanatics," said Nick Sloan boredly, "is that you can't depend on them."
He pressed trigger as he spoke, briefly. The little burst of slugs spun Shan Kar around and flung him into the dust between the pillars.